Iran nuclear talks end without agreement

Date: November 10 2013

Geneva: Iran and world powers failed to agree on a deal limiting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program after four days of talks that included high-ranking diplomats from the seven countries represented at the negotiations.

The next round of talks has been scheduled for November 21, according to an Iranian diplomat. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said more work was needed to reach a deal.

While the sides signalled a willingness to compromise, they couldn’t strike a balance between Iran’s intention to pursue its nuclear ambitions and the limited sanctions relief world powers were prepared to offer.

The failure gives opponents in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US Congress more time to lobby against any detente with Iran that would allow it to keep sensitive nuclear technologies.

The US and its allies say Iran seeks the capacity to build nuclear weapons, a charge denied by Iran.

The decade-long conflict has cast the spectres of another war in the Middle East and a Persian Gulf nuclear arms race.

The Geneva round of talks had raised expectations that an agreement was within reach after US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as their counterparts from China, France, Germany and the UK, made unscheduled trips to Geneva.

France's position

Earlier, Iranian state TV strongly criticised the French position, calling France `'Israel's representatives at the talks," while Iran's IRNA news agency cited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as urging world powers to reach a deal.

The French position dampened much of the optimism surrounding the opening of the talks on Thursday. As the day dragged on Saturday, comments by Mr Zarif increased scepticism that the two sides would agree on the full contours of a first-step deal at the current negotiating round.

"There are differences," Mr Zarif told Iranian state TV, adding that if open questions remained after Saturday, the talks would reconvene within a week to 10 days.

Iran's Arak reactor southeast of Tehran could produce enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons a year once it goes online. Beyond differences over that part of Iran's nuclear program, Mr Fabius said there was disagreement over efforts to limit Iran's uranium enrichment to levels that would require substantial further enriching before they could be used as the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said the powers negotiating with Iran were broadly united and that France wanted "the international community to see a serious change in the climate" of talks with Iran.

`'There have been years of talks that have led to nothing," Mr Nadal said, alluding to the need for tough terms on Iran.

Iran insists it is pursuing only nuclear energy, medical treatments and research, but the US and its allies fear that Iran could turn this material into the fissile core of nuclear warheads. Iran currently runs more than 10,000 centrifuges that have created tons of fuel-grade material that can be further enriched to arm nuclear warheads.

It also has nearly 200 kilograms of higher-enriched uranium in a form that can be turned into weapons much more quickly. Experts say 250 kilograms of that 20 percent-enriched uranium are needed to produce a single warhead.

Iran says it expects Arak, the plutonium producing reactor, to be completed and go online sometime next year. It would need additional facilities to reprocess the plutonium into weapons-grade material, and the UN's nuclear agency monitoring Iran's atomic activities says it has seen no evidence of such a project.

Iran also is being asked to blend down "a great part of this stock at 20 percent, to 5 percent," Mr Fabius said. Uranium enriched to 5 percent is considered reactor fuel grade, and upgrading it to weapons-level takes much longer than for 20 percent enriched uranium.

Mr Fabius suggested that the six powers were looking for an Iranian commitment to cap future enrichment at 5 percent.

AP, Bloomberg

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